By Erin Free
Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Imogen Poots, Michael Epp, Jim Belushi, Susannah Flood, Thora Birch, Earl Cave, Tom Sturridge, Charlie Carrick, Kim Gordon
Intro:
...a deliriously dexterous assault on the senses...
When it comes to actors turned director, critics and interviewers usually like to play the game of detecting the influences of the filmmakers that said actor has previously worked with. Well, with The Chronology Of Water, first-time feature director Kristen Stewart (who has helmed a few shorts and music videos prior) is nobody but her own goddamn self. Sure, there might be artful, impressionistic, biopic whispers from Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways), but Stewart directs and writes with such assurance, directness of purpose, and stylistic confidence that it’s difficult to imagine anyone guiding her hand, even in the loosest, most backseat of ways. Proving herself an increasingly fascinating actress with bold performances in recent films like Love Lies Bleeding and Crimes Of The Future, the Twilight breakout suggests with The Chronology Of Water that directing could very well be her true calling.
No standard biopic (if there’s really such a thing these days), The Chronology Of Water is the story of American writer and college professor Lidia Yuknavitch, who endured a childhood of sexual and psychological abuse before making a play at a swimming career and eventually finding her voice – a savage, unfettered one at that – as a memoirist and author. Anchored by a staggering performance from British actress Imogen Poots (who veers from heartbreaking vulnerability to seething rage in the space of seconds with extraordinary alacrity), The Chronology Of Water uses a striking barrage of unconventional sounds and images to depict Lidia’s ugly childhood; her highly fluid, deeply conflicted sexuality; her fraught, emotionally volatile marriages (three in total, to three wildly different men); her final embrace of the written word; and an eventual, hard-fought happiness.
Pairing a cohesive succession of stylised, liquid-themed images (the screen is literally swimming with an eye-popping mix of water, blood, sweat, ejaculate and saliva) with the wonderfully jagged, jarring music of composer Paris Hurley, Stewart stages a deliriously dexterous assault on the senses, expertly conveying the pain, anger, hurt and confusion that drive the creative impulses of the gifted Lidia Yuknavitch, who salved the wounds inflicted during her horribly abusive childhood with a volatile mix of alcohol, sex and self-destruction.
Though wholly engaged with her daring visuals, Stewart never loses sight of her story or her lead character. Lidia is a truly polarised and polarising figure, inspiring both tear-inducing sympathy and voluble frustration from the audience, and Stewart flatly refuses to compromise the complexity of her subject in any way. Lidia is deeply, profoundly fascinating, and Imogen Poots does extraordinary, uninhibited, award-worthy work here, capturing her fiery spirit and innate fragility with depth and nuance.
Like many actors turned director, Stewart gets the absolute best out of her performers, with Michael Epp (a chilling presence as Lidia’s creepy, domineering, abusive father), Susannah Flood (all diffident hopelessness as Lidia’s ineffectual, booze-soaked mother), Thora Birch (deeply moving as Lidia’s older, also abused sister), and Earl Cave, Tom Sturridge and Charlie Carrick (all make major impressions as Lidia’s three disparate husbands) all incredibly impressive in difficult, highly challenging roles.
Special mention, however, must be made of the too-rarely-seen-lately Jim Belushi, who is a funny, full-bodied, and wholly loveable delight as famed author and counterculture figurehead Ken Kesey, who penned One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion, and served as an unlikely mentor, teacher and friend to Lidia Yuknavitch in the late 1980s. Jim Belushi is a rare ray of light in this very dark film and, like Imogen Poots, gives an award-worthy performance. And watch too for Sonic Youth cult figure and occasional actress Kim Gordon, who is disturbingly icy as a BDSM therapist.
A wild but perfectly controlled cinematic geyser of trauma, sex, desperation and blood-tinged redemption, The Chronology Of Water is the best kind of sensory overload, and a stunning statement piece from the prodigiously gifted Kristen Stewart.
The Chronology Of Water screens at The Revelation Perth International Film Festival on Sunday, July 12 at Luna Leederville at 5.30pm. For all ticketing and venue information, click here.
